Part-time jobs for students in Singapore
Most students in Singapore work part-time in retail, food and drink, events or tuition, and many do office work for small companies: marketing, operations, sales support. Retail and food service jobs at many companies now have legal minimum hourly rates, roughly S$12 an hour. If you are an international student, you can work up to 16 hours a week during term and full-time in the holidays, as long as your school is on MOM's approved list.
The kinds of work students do
- Retail and food and drink. Shift work, often weekends, easy to find and easy to fit around classes. Pay is set by the hour.
- Events and promotions. Short bursts of work: a weekend roadshow, a concert, an exhibition. Good when your weeks are unpredictable.
- Tuition. Usually the best paid by the hour if you have good grades in a subject people need help with, but you find your own students or work through an agency.
- Office work for a small company. A set number of hours a week on marketing, social media, operations, research or sales support. It pays less than tuition but counts as experience for your CV, and it often leads to an internship. Most of the part-time roles on Worksider are this kind.
What it pays
There is no general minimum wage in Singapore, but there are floors in some jobs. At companies that employ foreign workers, Singaporean and PR staff must be paid at least set rates under the Progressive Wage Model and the Local Qualifying Salary:
- Retail assistants and cashiers, part-time: at least S$12.77 an hour from 1 September 2026.
- Food services, part-time: at least S$11.64 to S$12.17 an hour from 1 July 2026, depending on the role.
- Any other part-time role at those companies: at least S$10.50 an hour, the Local Qualifying Salary, from 1 July 2026.
Sources: MOM on retail, MOM on food services, MOM on the Local Qualifying Salary.
Tuition pays more per hour. Tuition agencies quote rates from about S$30 an hour for primary school students, rising for secondary and JC levels, though you will spend time travelling and preparing that is not paid.
If you are an international student
If you are on a Student's Pass and study full-time at an approved school, which includes NUS, NTU, SMU, SUTD, SIT, SUSS, the polytechnics, ITE, LASALLE and NAFA, you can work without a work pass:
- during term, for up to 16 hours a week;
- during the vacation, without that limit.
Exchange students cannot work, and students at private schools need a work pass. Your employer does not pay CPF for you.
Source: MOM work pass exemption for foreign students.
CPF on part-time pay
If you are a Singapore citizen or PR and earn more than S$50 a month, CPF applies to a part-time job just as it does to a full-time one. Up to S$500 a month only your employer contributes. Above that, your own share phases in, and above S$750 a month 20% of your pay goes into your CPF while your employer adds 17%. Being a student does not change this for an ordinary part-time job. For university, polytechnic and ITE students, the exemption covers only internships the school has approved.
Source: CPF Board.
Fitting it around your timetable
- Count your real hours. Ten hours of work is closer to thirteen once you add travel. Start with fewer than you think you can manage, then add.
- Say your availability up front. "Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and Saturdays" is something an employer can plan around. "Flexible" is not.
- Plan for exams. Tell an employer at the start when your exam weeks are. Most will work around them if they know early.
- Filter by time. On Worksider, "Time you have" shows only the roles that fit the hours you can give, starting from up to 10 hours a week.
Scams to watch for
A job that pays you to like posts, review products or complete "tasks", and then asks you to top up money to unlock your earnings, is a scam. So is any job that asks for a fee, a deposit, or your bank login. Real employers do not hire entirely over a chat app. Every listing on Worksider is read by a person before it goes up, and if one looks wrong, report it and we take it down.